Bachelorette
by Konstantya
Summary: A frilly pink dress and reasons not to marry. Tifa could never handle being a princess, so it was probably just as well Prince Charming was never depicted as a sharpshooter. [Oneshot challenge fic proposed by Myhi over on the VincentxTifa forum.]


General Note: I'm only going to reformat my fics so much when this site is the one at fault. So If the formatting is weird, please check out my profile for more info. Thank you.

A/N: I _guess_ this could qualify as romance. Kind of.

First challenge fic I've ever written (proposed over on the VincentxTifa forum—Tifa was somehow supposed to be in a frilly pink dress, and to be quite honest, I don't know why it struck me, but it did). First VincentxTifa fic I've ever written (bye-bye, VincentxTifa virginity of mine). I read quite a lot of them, but don't really actively ship the couple. I think I prefer to think of Vincent as single—pretty much over Lucrecia, but not getting the romance on anywhere else. So they're not really my bag, but hell, if nothing else, Vincent and Tifa _are_ a very aesthetically pleasing couple.

That being, this is far from a hardcore VincentxTifa romance, but I'm hoping it's enough to appease the masses.

Obligatory (but ultimately pointless) CYA: I don't own it.

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**Bachelorette  
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At the age of twenty-one, Tifa Lockhart was quite convinced she was never going to get married. Not if such a thing entailed mounds of hair piled on top of her head, and high heels she more often stumbled in than walked, and a frilly pink dress.

She twisted her mouth at herself in the mirror. All right, she amended—it really wasn't _that_ frilly. But it was certainly no tank top, miniskirt, and boots. Gods help her if she ever had to fight in something so, so…long, and poofy, and _pink_. A pale pink, with gathered chiffon that settled off her shoulders and a sweetheart neckline. The bodice was overlaid with a little bit of white lace and some simple embroidery, secured by a satin ribbon that criss-crossed down the back to a full skirt, draping elegantly down like a waterfall made of spun sugar.

Fifteen feet behind her, Yuffie wasn't doing that much better in her own size of the same pink dress. She uncomfortably sat in a chair while Elmyra Gainsborough fixed the hair the ninja had mussed with shakes of her head and by absently running her fingers through it. With each little rhinestone clip that was pinned back in place, she threw Tifa one more look in the mirror that screamed "save me."

Elmyra herself, in yet another duplicate of the dress, was looking the most at ease. Then again, Tifa thought, not only had she been the bride-to-be's right-hand woman when it came to the planning of the wedding, but there was a good chance the older woman had done the whole "bridesmaid" thing before.

Still, that didn't make Tifa feel any more comfortable as she gave the dress little tugs of adjustment for what must have been the fiftieth time. Looking down at it only put her in mind of the wedding decorations they had arranged earlier in the day. Arches and trellises of flowers, and ribbons, and gauze, and enough candles to fuel a couple fire-hazards hung from trees in glass holders, to be lit when the sun went down.

Shera, soon to be Mrs. Highwind, underneath her glasses and tea and engineering ways, was a romantic to the power of ten. When Cid had finally worked up the nerve to apologize and propose—in his own elegant way, which included a few select curses at the inadequacy of his own tongue—Shera had taken full advantage of the opportunity to exploit any and all romantic dreams she had probably been collecting since she was a little girl. She had even managed to convince Cid (with her "goddamn feminine wiles") that the tuxedo jackets needed the sort of coattails that were fashionable about a century ago.

Cid for the most part had very little say in the actual planning, with the exception of two particular instances. Knowing the tenuous relationship between Cloud and Tifa, the first had been his emphatic suggestion that they _not_ be paired to walk down the aisle together. While they had been on good enough terms during the planning, who knew what it would be like by the time the wedding came around, and Cid was more chilled by the prospect of emotional drama than he was by the prospect of marriage—which was saying quite a lot.

Yuffie had been considered the logical default, but Cid recalled her mooning over the blonde a couple times back in their travels. Hell knew if Yuffie still had a crush on him, and hell if Cid knew how female minds worked, but all he knew was that if Tifa wasn't over Cloud yet, Cloud plus Yuffie with the variable Tifa could equal emotional drama plus jealousy, so Yuffie had been delegated to Reeve.

As a last resort, Shera had suggested pairing Cloud with Elmyra, but that would have been just plain weird and surely awkward, in more ways than one.

For a time, the idea of simply putting Cloud in a dress again and making him another bridesmaid was tossed around, but sadly forgone in lieu of Barret's suggestion of pairing him with Marlene, even though she was the flower girl. This had mercifully been agreed upon, and Marlene delighted in the fact that she not only got to sprinkle flower petals for Shera, but she also had a handsome man to drag along and hold her basket. Barret was quite convinced that in ten years, she'd have boys wrapped around her fingers like so many rings.

The second intervention of Cid Highwind in the planning process had involved Vincent Valentine, and all anyone had heard of that was the pilot's irate response:

"Well, you can't give him a _pink_ bandana! Shit, Shera, he's suffered enough already! At least let the man wear _black_."

The sound of feet pattered down the hallway in the Highwind house, and Marlene rushed in, only to be followed a moment later by Shera herself, who looked like an intellectual cross of an angel and a queen. Suddenly, Tifa didn't mind the bridesmaid dress so much when compared to Shera's wedding dress. The engineer was obviously reveling in it, and while it was gorgeous, Tifa was quite sure she'd want to borrow a couple of Yuffie's ninja stars to cut half of the skirt off, had she been the one wearing it.

Marlene rushed up to Tifa and tugged at her skirt. "Tifa! Doesn't Miss Shera look _beautiful?_ Like a fairytale princess!"

Tifa smiled thoughtfully. "I think that's a _perfect_ description of her."

Yuffie carefully stood, glad that Elmyra was finished torturing her with bobby pins, and turned to look. "Aw, you sure are right, Marlene!" She grinned mischievously. "But last time I checked, Cid was far from being Prince Charming."

-  
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_Increased height,_ Tifa decided twenty minutes later. That was one definite plus to wearing high heels. Especially when her groomsman was Vincent Valentine. In the back of her mind, she giddily noticed that her eye-level was above his shoulders. Being tall was fun once in a while, she admitted to herself.

For all purposes, Vincent in a tuxedo wasn't all that different from Vincent in black clothes and a red cloak and brass-plated boots—he still stood the same, his features still looked as emotionless as ever, and his voice still retained that toneless quality that had become indescribably and completely _his._

Well, not all that different if one ignored that the bottom of his face was plainly visible, that his claw was reduced from an entirely visible forearm to a hand sticking out from a sleeve, and that he apparently polished up _extremely_ well.

Tifa mildly chided herself for her surprise at that. Of course Vincent would polish up well—he was _Vincent_. Whereas Barret had pulled uncomfortably at his collar more than once, despite how his shirt fit him just fine, Vincent hadn't even done so much as check his tie.

Then again, she thought, waiting in line at the back of where the ceremony was about to begin, he had been a Turk once upon a time. Unless you were a certain redhead called Reno, she imagined Turks got very used to wearing a suit and tie on a regular basis.

Her eyes slid over to him as she tried to imagine him in navy blue instead of the black he was currently wearing. And had he always worn his hair in such a way? She doubted it, but despite that, she couldn't even begin to picture how it might have been. Still long, but neat, like Tseng's had been? Maybe pulled back? Then again, Vincent seemed pretty conservative. Maybe he had kept it short…

Aware that she was scrutinizing him from the corners of her eyes, he finally turned his head to look down at her. "Is something the matter?"

"Ah—no! I was just…" Tifa looked at her bouquet and fumbled a moment for some words. "You look really nice," she finally blurted out, looking back up, hoping to recover from any possible embarrassment. She pointed vaguely at his head. "Black suits you better than pink, I think."

"It is fortunate, then, that those wearing the latter color make it much more appealing to the eye."

Before she had a chance to contemplate that statement, the music began and the procession started, Marlene dragging Cloud along like some puppy on a leash. With a practiced ease, Vincent smoothly offered his arm to her, and with a smile, Tifa gingerly took it.

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In the end, the hours of preparations earlier in the day were well worth it. Though the wedding and the reception itself were rather extravagant, it wasn't a terribly large or crowded ordeal. Most of the local guests consisted of the _Highwind's_ crew and others that had worked with or under Cid, so the celebration itself was rather cozy and comfortable and hardly overbearing.

Taking a sip of champagne from her glass, Tifa grinned at the dance floor. Yuffie looked ready to rip her dress off and beat some grace into Cloud if he managed to step on her hem one more time, and Marlene was currently dancing with Barret by standing on his shoes, surely feeling like a little princess herself. She was perhaps the only female in the bridal party (sans the bride, herself) who was truly ecstatic about the pink dress and the ribbons in her curled hair—though, being designed for a child, her dress was simpler and seemed far more comfortable than the version the other three grown women had to wear.

Finishing off the last bit of her drink, she moved to set the glass back at her place setting, passing by the refreshment table on the way. Unable to quell her bartending habits, when she noticed the supply of ice for drinks drastically dwindling, she took it upon herself to refill the container. Besides, she would feel terrible interrupting the new Mr. and Mrs. Highwind for something as mundane as needing ice. This was their night to celebrate, not do chores.

Forgetting that in such a long, formal dress, she would have to pick up the skirt, as Tifa walked up the short steps to the back door of the house, her shoe caught her own hem and she almost tripped. Grumbling under her breath, she grabbed the skirt with both hands and hiked it up almost to her knees. Just as she began her journey up the steps again, eyes cast down to make sure she wouldn't trip, someone exited the door, smoothly passing her on their way back outside.

There was a slight brush of guiding fingers on her back as she ascended the last step, chasing her blood through her veins and electrifying her skin. Turning her head over her shoulder, her nerves still tingling, all she caught was a flicker of crimson eyes meeting hers and then the side profile of Vincent Valentine before he turned completely and walked away from the house.

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A/N: At first I was excited about this, and then I was like, "Eh, this kind of sucks," and then I didn't think it was _that_ bad, and now…well, I _think_ I'm pretty happy with it. Maybe I have mixed feelings simply because this qualifies as fluff in my book (but my book is either full of drama and angst, or sarcasm and parody). It's a learning experience, if nothing else.

And I think I rather like the idea of challenge fics.

Anyway, as always, reviews, while not required, are certainly accepted with open arms.


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